Horsewright
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2011
- Messages
- 13,342
Once upon a time there was a guy named Charlie
waynorth
. Charlie had a knife but the knife was lonely. Ya know its a pretty darn nice knife if I say so myself (there I just did) but it does need a sheath before it goes to visit Charlie for the first time, a guy needs some pants to go visitin'.
So we're gonna make one of my Pancake style sheaths with some basket stamping for Charlie's knife. Follow along and see the process.
Front and back of the sheath cut from premium Herman Oak veg tan 7/8 oz in weight.
Leather has been dampened, the interior stitch lines have been traced from the other side and now the leather is "slicked" with that piece of ligum vitae. This makes the leather more dense and provides crisper tooling.
Maker's mark stamped on the back side.
Starting to stamp the front. We'll do the border first and then the basket stamping.
So after the tooling the parts go and sit out on the bricks in the sun. Looks like the high country of the ranch is getting some showers. All the mountains seen here are part of our ranch.
Charlies knife wasn't really all that lonely, it was faking a bit. In this batch there were 53 other knives and 68 sheaths total. Waiting to get sewn up. I do the sheaths in two batches usually. All the pancakes and then all the rest.
Some old cowboy guy sewing up one of the pancake sheaths.
After sewing, they are wet molded and fitted to each individual knife, slots are punched, edges sanded, rounded and rubbed and in the bag they go.
After they are all in the bag, I carry em inside the house and take over the oven. They get baked for a couple of hours at 175 degrees. This starts the leather drying from the inside out and provides a firm but not too stiff feel to the sheath that helps it hold its shape through the years.
After baking they get a nice light coat of warm,pure, neatsfoot oil. Then I let em sit for about 8 hours so the oil can "set" becoming uniform throughout.
Put some finish on it and call er good. Winging its way to Charlie, hope he likes er.
Questions and comments on our little story are welcome. If ya ever want to try your hand at something like this I did an in depth tutorial on building a pancake sheath that is in the stickies over in Sheaths and Such. Thanks Charlie!
waynorth
. Charlie had a knife but the knife was lonely. Ya know its a pretty darn nice knife if I say so myself (there I just did) but it does need a sheath before it goes to visit Charlie for the first time, a guy needs some pants to go visitin'.
So we're gonna make one of my Pancake style sheaths with some basket stamping for Charlie's knife. Follow along and see the process.
Front and back of the sheath cut from premium Herman Oak veg tan 7/8 oz in weight.
Leather has been dampened, the interior stitch lines have been traced from the other side and now the leather is "slicked" with that piece of ligum vitae. This makes the leather more dense and provides crisper tooling.
Maker's mark stamped on the back side.
Starting to stamp the front. We'll do the border first and then the basket stamping.
So after the tooling the parts go and sit out on the bricks in the sun. Looks like the high country of the ranch is getting some showers. All the mountains seen here are part of our ranch.
Charlies knife wasn't really all that lonely, it was faking a bit. In this batch there were 53 other knives and 68 sheaths total. Waiting to get sewn up. I do the sheaths in two batches usually. All the pancakes and then all the rest.
Some old cowboy guy sewing up one of the pancake sheaths.
After sewing, they are wet molded and fitted to each individual knife, slots are punched, edges sanded, rounded and rubbed and in the bag they go.
After they are all in the bag, I carry em inside the house and take over the oven. They get baked for a couple of hours at 175 degrees. This starts the leather drying from the inside out and provides a firm but not too stiff feel to the sheath that helps it hold its shape through the years.
After baking they get a nice light coat of warm,pure, neatsfoot oil. Then I let em sit for about 8 hours so the oil can "set" becoming uniform throughout.
Put some finish on it and call er good. Winging its way to Charlie, hope he likes er.
Questions and comments on our little story are welcome. If ya ever want to try your hand at something like this I did an in depth tutorial on building a pancake sheath that is in the stickies over in Sheaths and Such. Thanks Charlie!
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I am sure Charlie will be more than pleased with that beautiful combo! 
